Author: Dónall Ó Briain

Culture

The triumph of Polish music

FRYDERYK CHOPIN was born on 22 February 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, to a Polish mother and a French father. He grew up in Warsaw but left Poland in 1831, shortly before the Polish popular uprising against the tsarist oppressors. He moved to Paris, where he lived until his death, aged only thirty-nine, on 17 October 1849.

Socialism

Who said that? Wealth

“In many countries, the wealthy pay lower effective taxes than far poorer people. We need to change course— or face the pitchforks. “The ecological catastrophe fueled by climate change and the socio-economic upheaval threatened by grotesque inequalities of wealth and power have the potential to destroy everything we care about.

International Socialism

Che and Fidel: Revolutionaries to the end

As we celebrate the sixty-first anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, a great Irish friend, loyal defender of Cuba, asked me to write for Socialist Voice about the imprint of Fidel

Castro and Ernesto Guevara on the most important event of the twentieth century in Latin America—not without first clarifying for me, with the typical frankness and the

classic and imperative Irish style: it had to be brief.

Imperialism International

International Anti-Imperialist Conference in Caracas

2019 was a year of victories for Venezuela, President Maduro claimed at a ceremony on 23 January for the anniversary of the fall of the Jiménez dictatorship in 1958. This was also the date chosen last year by Juan Guaidó to proclaim himself “interim president” of Venezuela. His argument, prompted by Mike Pence, was that the office was vacant, because of their non-recognition of the election of President Maduro, and therefore should go to the chairperson of the National Assembly, the office he held.

Current Affairs History Ireland

No limit to servility

There appears to be simply no depth to which the establishment will not sink to show what faithful servants they are to imperialism and in particular to British imperialism. The Irish people endured centuries of colonial and imperialist domination. They endured mass starvation, violent oppression, the destruction of our language […]

Imperialism

Rehearsing a possible war against Russia

Last month the US government announced that its military budget for 2020 will be a colossal $738 billion. The US military is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries. But only a minority of environmental campaigns or […]